Link: TechCrunch

It’s interesting to see that Tablets are Dead, or at least dying, and in truth I can agree with it. Even though I don’t like it I have an iPad, two of them in fact. The older one is laying around my room somewhere dead, the second I use as a kindle mostly and, since I have a keyboard for it, occasionally to write. My Roommate got the Nexus 7 a while back and he loved it then, but once he upgraded his laptop he hasn’t used it since that I am aware of, and also he has a Nexus 6 now too which is about the same size.

Why I bring this up? Well if tablets are dying there’s one less place we can make a game for. Not that it really matters much since most phones are becoming bigger anyway and playing games on a tablet seemed rather bulky. Also most new computers are tending to be 2-in-1s where you can flip the keyboard or detach it and still have a working “tablet”. Personally I really don’t think the tablet is dead but has evolved into computers on one end and phones on the other. It filled a void when we needed it filled and now that things have evolved we no longer need the lesser of the three.

Link: CHRIS’S SURVIVAL HORROR QUEST via Kotaku

This story is interesting too and deals with the cellphone dilemma. I actually read it mostly because my game idea “Wish I Was There” uses a cellphone as its primary mechanic throughout the game. It’s hard to think that in this age of instant connection with people that having a horror, suspense, or survival game with a cellphone is almost a no go. That’s why a lot of games set their stories in the 1990s. Like “Gone Home” and “Firewatch” they base the games when there is no cellphone technology so there is no chance of calling family members, police, or anyone really.

Links:

Forbes
Android Community

This is an interesting What’s News because I got the idea from two things. One, class constantly talking about gaming going to be more AR related in the future, and two, I actually got the link from a friend on twitter. Also interesting because both those articles were out in 2014 and it has now become beta in 2016.

If you go to http://father.io you will see a video of the game play which is an advanced camera that is placed on your phone and acts like basically laser tag. The game itself seem to use an image of a real gun, firing sounds, etc. to get people immersed into the game.

The plot of the game closely resembles that of one those dystopian sci-fi novel and movies we’re now familiar with. Mix a drop of Matrix with Hunger Games and you’ll get the idea. Action is set in 2040 and players are divided in two teams: the Humans and the Evolved, humans who have chosen to interface their biological brain with Ethereus, the Artificial Intelligence which rules the planet. Thanks to Ethereus, all territorial conflicts, religious conflicts, ideological conflicts, and race conflicts finally belong to the past.

But something goes wrong: FatherIO – a mysterious digital virus of unknown origins – infects Ethereus’s behavioural algorithms, sending out the order to extinguish all human beings that haven’t yet become “Evolved” (Forbes)

I like the concept, as I always like ARGs but still not sure how I feel about the shooting aspect of it. Either way with this coming out soon from the looks of it the game field is drastically changing.

Link: Gamasutra

Amazon has made their own game engine to sell games on their website. This is actually interesting as they are entering a field as a content creator rather than just a content seller. It’s also great for us as game designers as the game creation system is completely free, meaning they will not make any money off of the games you create, where they will make the money is from Amazon Web Servers.

Monetization for Lumberyard will come strictly through the use of Amazon Web Services’ cloud computing. If you use the engine for your game, you’re permitted to roll your own server tech, but if you’re using a third-party provider, it has to be Amazon.

That makes sense as very few companies would make nothing without expecting some form of profit.

Lumberjack, which is the name of the engine, is based off Crytek’s CryEngine. They got “full, unencumbered access to the technology” to build upon and change as needed. Of course as they move forward the differences between engines will inevitably grow.

The only disadvantage of the engine seems to be the focus on multiplayer games, not that this is a huge disadvantage, but it feels like they would

Link: Gamasutra

Nintendo is no longer doing their life “Quality of Life” products which they announced when the Wii U was announced, which I suppose is understandable since they have not actually brought anything out for it as of yet and they are in the works with a new system in general.

President Tatsumi Kimishima said, “In regards to the Quality of Life [device], which was not mentioned in any of today’s questions, we do not have the conviction that the sleep-and-fatigue-themed [device] can enter the phase of actually becoming a product. We no longer have any plans to release it by the end of March 2016.”

I do think it’s good they are dropping things that they believe they cannot make work although I don’t know why they don’t work with companies that already make it work and make a Wii U app that tracks your health with FitBit or something similar.

Link: Polygon

Looks like Peter Molyneux Twitter account was hacked. Someone hacked his account and stated that he was retiring, that Godus was going to be removed from the Steam Store, and that the 2010 Xbox 360 game Fable 3 was his “biggest mistake” and that “it pushed me and my team to the limits.” His company revealed that, no he isn’t retiring and that Godus, which apparently is getting abysmal reviews from Steam, is still being made.

But there is news of a game that is still being made…

Link: Digital Spy

Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still being made. Even though the original was made 13 years ago, the sequel is still in the process of being made. The reason follows below:

Ancel was asked outright if the follow-up was still being made, to which he answered: “Yeah, but it’s difficult because it’s hard for me to redo the same kind of game two times.

“I always want to do something different. It has to be great. When we started [the first] game there was not that much pressure.”

Which I find funny as it was then being touted as the “Zelda Killer”… how many times have we heard that about a game?